Families must also be ready for consultation. Family members (as do others) often have preconceived notions about what “mental health” means and may resist bringing in a mental health consultant to work with them and their child. It is especially important to work closely with families so that they understand that having a mental health consultant work with them doesn’t mean they are not doing a good job raising their child.
The Performance Standards at Collaboration and communication with parents, 45 CFR §1302.41 require programs to collaborate with families as partners in the health, mental health, and well-being of their children in a linguistically and culturally appropriate manner and communicate their child’s health and mental health needs and development concerns in a timely and effective manner. They also require programs to obtain advance authorization from the parent or other person with legal authority for all health, mental health, and developmental procedures administered through the program or by contract or agreement, and maintain written documentation if they refuse to give authorization for health and mental health services. Communicating with families about consultation is a wonderful opportunity to destigmatize mental health and explain that consultation provides support for adults to better meet the social emotional needs of children.
As administrator, you play an important role in helping to reduce the stigma that is sometimes associated with the words “mental health” and in working with your program staff to find ways to communicate with families about the role of the consultant. One way to do this is by creating and communicating the program’s shared vision, as described in Section 1. Another good strategy is to invite your mental health consultant to make a presentation — ideally, this could be a co-presentation with a trusted member of program staff — at a “family night” event or Policy Council meeting. This presentation should include information about your program’s broader, multidisciplinary approaches and definition of mental health and should describe the consultant’s role in the program. Communication with families about their child’s mental health needs and development concerns must occur in a timely and effective manner.
Family readiness also includes a commitment on the part of the family to working with the consultant on things that may be challenging in the classroom or at home. Families may be more ready for consultation if they feel that their voices are heard and that they have been involved in and have received communication about issues involving their child. Families may also be more ready to accept consultation if they view the consultant’s presence in the classroom as normal and not stigmatizing. To the extent that part of the consultant’s role is supporting all children, this will help families consider accepting treatment if their child needs intervention approaches that are more targeted.
Activity: Is Your Program Ready for Consultation?
Review each of the items below and determine whether each statement is true for you and for your staff. If any of these things are not true for either you or your program, you may need to work on these issues so that your program can benefit maximally from consultation.
As an administrator, are you:
- Prepared to provide staff time for partnership and consultation activities?
- Willing to engage in a reflective strategic planning process to determine how to best meet the mental health needs of families, children, and staff?
- Realistic about your expectations for consultation and what consultation can do?
- Able to adopt an improvement-oriented perspective, including collecting and reviewing data and continually making changes to your program to improve services?
- Willing to allow consultants regular time in the classrooms?
- Willing to provide time for staff and consultants to meet outside the classroom?
- Philosophically committed to including all children in classroom-based services?
- Committed to professional development of staff?
- Willing to reach out to community partners to expand and facilitate access to community mental health resources?
- Committed to supporting staff wellness?
Do you feel your staff are:
- Willing to accept support from the mental health consultant?
- Willing to engage in a reflective strategic planning process to determine how to best meet the mental health needs of families, children, and staff?
- Realistic about their expectations for consultation and what consultation can do?
- Clear in their understanding about the role of the consultant?
- Open to partnering with the consultant to develop new or different ways to work with children and families?
- Willing to allow consultants regular time in their classrooms?
- Willing to take time to meet with consultants outside the classroom?
- Philosophically committed to including all children in classroom-based services?
- Committed to their own professional development?
- Willing to see supporting children’s mental health as part of their job?
